Francois Pouqueville

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Francois Pouqueville
Francois Pouqueville at Ioanina
Born	4 November 1770(1770-11-04) Le Merlerault, Normandie, France
Died	20 December 1838 (aged 68) Paris, France
Nationality	FRANCE
Occupation	Diplomat, writer, physician, historian, archaeologist
Known for	his influential pro-Greeks diplomacy and writings

Francois Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville was born in Le Merlerault, Normandie, France on the 4th of November in 1770 and died on the 20th of December in 1838. He was a French diplomat, writer, explorer, physician and historian who, first as the Turkish Sultan's hostage, then as Napoleon Bonaparte's general consul at the court of Ali Pasha of Ioannina, travelled extensively throughout Ottoman occupied Greece from 1798 to 1825.

Contents 1 Youth: Minister and revolutionary 2 Prisoner of the Turkish Sultan 2.1 Egypt: Bonaparte, Nelson and pirates 2.2 Pelopponese: Pasha and physician 2.3 Constantinople: Prisons and Harems 2.4 Emergence of philhellenism 3 Diplomat and Archaeologist 3.1 Ali Pasha of Ioannina 3.2 Patras and the Greek War of Independence 4 Return to Parisian life 4.1 Honors 4.2 Writer of the regeneration of Greece 4.3 Intellectual and artistic social life 5 Works 6 Notes and References 7 Bibliography

[edit] Youth: Minister and revolutionary

Francois Pouqueville studied at the college of Caen before joining the Lisieux seminary. He became deacon and was ordained at 21. He became vicar in his native county of Montmarcé.

On July 14, 1793 (year 2 of the French Republic) the primary Assembly of Le Merlerault adopted the constitutional act: its secretary was Francois Pouqueville.

He was assistant to the mayor (1793), then 23 years old and finding his vocation with the events of the French Revolution, he resigned from the clergy to become a teacher (1794), and a municipal assistant at Le Merlereault (1795).
Soon, the town's physician, Dr Cochin, who had been Pouqueville's colleague at the college of Caen, took him as student-surgeon. He then introduced him to his friend the professor Antoine Dubois of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris
Francois Pouqueville left Le Merlerault for Paris (1797). He was 27.
Under this master, he made rapid progress and, when then general Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt was decided, Pouqueville obtained to be part as a surgeon of its accompanying commission of sciences and arts of Egypt.

[edit] Prisoner of the Turkish Sultan

[edit] Egypt: Bonaparte, Nelson and pirates

In Egypt, after the first battle of Aboukir (1798), marshall Kleber entrusted Francois Pouqueville to negotiate the exchange of prisoners with Admiral Nelson. When he caught a bad fever that refrained him from continuing his scientific researches, he was advised by Kleber to return to France to receive better medical attention.
Boarding an Italian merchant ship in Alexandria he was sailing to Italy when they were attacked by Barbary Coast pirates as they were approaching Calabria and Francois Pouqueville was taken prisoner.

[edit] Pelopponese: Pasha and physician

Brought to Navarino, he was remanded to the custody of Moustapha Pacha, vasal of the Turkish Sultan Mehmet Ali, ruler of the Ottoman Empire who was at war with France.
Pouqueville was then lead to Tripolitza, capital of Peloponese, to be imprisoned. Moustapha Pacha received him with some indifference, but he still protected him against the brutalities of the Albanian soldiers who were guarding him since his capture, and he gave him a decent lodging.
Soon after, the pacha was deposed and replaced by Achmet Pacha.
Having learned that Francois Pouqueville practiced medicine, the new pacha treated him well and, after seeing how successful Pouqueville was when healing some members of his entourage, he named him official physician of his pashalic. Pouqueville took advantage of his new situation by exploring the surrounding regions^[1], including some harems where he was treating patients. He remained in Tripolitza through the harsh 1798 winter.

[edit] Constantinople: Prisons and Harems

In the spring, the Turkish Sultan ordered that he be transferred over land and sea with his co-prisoners to Constantinople where they were incarcerated for two years in the fortress of seven towers, Yedikule.
Francois Pouqueville wrote that they found there, living in abject conditions, the members of the French embassy to whom the Sultan had refused, under insistent demands from the British, the usual diplomatic treatment of being kept on parole at the French embassy palace, which had been appropriated by the same British.
Pouqueville became friend with the French diplomat Ruffin, held prisoner since the expedition of Egypt, whose health he attended to and whom he nicknamed the Nestor of the Orient and with whom he perfected his knowledge of orientalist. Later, the two men continued their correspondence long after their release from prison and until Ruffin's death.
Soon after arriving in Constantinople, Francois Pouqueville had gained some liberty of movement as his jailers had learned about his medical skills and he succeeded in exploring the surroundings of the fortress, notably the Sultan's private gardens at the Topkapi palace, and even his harem, with the complicity of the Sultan's gardener whom he had befriended. There, he met a French woman who was being held captive and victim of the Sultan's lust after having been kidnapped from one of the French mediterranean garrisons. For a long time, Francois Pouqueville pondered all the possibilities to arrange for her escape, but the odds of success of such a dangerous venture in the very core of the Ottoman capital were far too low and she finally sadly asked him to renounce this project that would undoubtedly have cost them their lives and those of the gardener and of a supportive and helpful eunuch.

On occasions, he convinced his guards to let him travel through the City of Constantinople and along the Bosphorus, all the way to the Black Sea to attend to other French prisoners who were gravely ill and held in a distant jail. At the time, the plague was still active in the eastern parts of the mediterranean regions and Pouqueville was determined in his researches of the proper medical methods to fight the terrible disease. His observations in the form of a thesis were highly regarded when published in Paris upon his return.

His written accounts of such excursions were the first detailed descriptions by a westerner of the Turkish megalopolis and its diverse inhabitants, their way of life, customs and habits. These were received in Europe with great astonishment and curiosity for the gate of Asia which had previously remained practically unexplored since the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453.

While jailed, Pouqueville studied modern Greek . He translated Anacreon, wrote several oriental pieces like The Pariah, a short humoristic poem, La Gueuseade, in four chants and in sestets, and a few lighter poems dedicated to Rose Ruffin.

Throughout his captivity, Pouqueville kept a journal written in a secret code that he had imagined and that he managed to hide from his guards, leading them instead in their occasional searches of his cell to other unimportant writings which he let them find and confiscate. It is from this occult journal that he was able to write, a few years after his release, the 600 pages of the first two parts of the important book^[2] he published in 1805 and that brought him fame and fortune, the 300 pages of part three being devoted to the astonishing adventures that his friends and brothers in arms (future Baron, General) Poitevin, (future General) Charbonnel and (future Consul General) Bessieres encountered after their release from the fortress of seven towers.

[edit] Emergence of philhellenism

In the beginning, being a hostage of the Turks, Francois Pouqueville had an uneasy view of the Greeks he encountered in the close entourage of his Ottoman guards. Not unlike Lord Byron who became himself, years later, a symbol of philhellenism, Pouqueville felt at first unsure of the Greeks' sincerity^[3]. But his work as the pashalic's physician in Tripolitza caused his Turkish escort to become gradually sparser and his frequent contacts with authentic Greeks made him appreciate their rich cultural background under a new light. Even though it was being suppressed by the seven generations long occupation of Greece by their Ottoman rulers, the Greek social identity appeared very much alive to Pouqueville and, as a fervent believer of the French revolution's humanism, he soon developed a growing sympathy for the budding Greek resurgence. His condition as a prisoner of the Turkish Sultan prevented him at the time to do more than bringing medical attention and treatment to the oppressed population, but his writings already showed a strong new current of intellectual and emotional support. His humane survey of Greece as early as 1798 is the 19th century's earliest manifestation of the philhellene movement. It would soon spread throughout Europe with the wide publication of his books setting in motion a constant trend amongst the greatest minds of the time to follow his steps across the newly revealed land of Greece. The antique nation's rebirth ensued over the next decades with its liberation, its war of independence and the break up of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1801, twenty five months after being jailed in Constantinople, under the insistence of the French government and with the help from the Russian diplomats in Turkey, Francois Pouqueville was set free and returned to Paris.

[edit] Diplomat and Archaeologist

Upon his return to Paris, he submitted his doctorate thesis De febre adeno-nevrosa seu de peste orientali a work on the oriental plague that caused him to be nominated for the awards for the prizes of the decade.
However, his interests for literature and archaeology were now for Pouqueville as strong as his passion for medicine. The publication of his first book "Travel to Epirus, to Constantinople, to Albania and to several other parts of the Ottoman Empire" dedicated to the Emperor Napoleon Ist and published in 1805 was a huge literary success internationally and had also for consequence his nomination as Napoleon's general consul to the court of Ali Pasha of Ioanina. His knowledge of the region and of the local languages made him the ideal diplomatic agent^[4] for Napoleon and his foreign minister Talleyrand. Pouqueville accepted the post that would also enable him to pursue his studies about Greece.

[edit] Ali Pasha of Ioannina

At first, he was welcomed by the famous pasha whom he accompanied to several of his excursions and who made him discover his native Albania. For a time he also took with him the British agent Leake in several travels of archaeological surveys across Greece. Together they reported many forgotten or previously unknown antique sites^[5].
His diplomatic status also enabled Pouqueville to explore Greece in its entirety as far as Macedonia and Thrace^[6]. He maintained his journal containing the details of his observations and discoveries. For example, he researched and recorded the traces of no less than sixty five antique cities in Epirus alone^[7].
In 1813, he discovered in Actium a stone slab with acarnanian inscriptions which he deciphered. It pertained to the time when the Roman armies appeared in Greece (c. 197 BC) and was a decree of the Senate and of the people of Acarnania proclaiming the brothers Publius and Lucius Acilius as their friends and benefactors^[8].

In Ioannina, the court of Ali Pasha was increasingly the seat of many political intrigues between the European powers^[9] encouraged by the pasha himself^[10], and Pouqueville was for years the target of disparaging and acrimonious critics^[11] from some English visitors to Ioanina such as Lord Byron^[12] with Hobhouse, and Cockerell, because of the influence^[13] he had on Ali and mostly because of the literary and political notoriety he had acquired with the international success of his first book, singling him out as the precursor, as early as 1805, of the Greek revival movement emerging in Europe.

But after Napoleon's 1807 treaty of Tilsitt which forewarned of the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, Ali Pasha renounced his alliance with France and yielded to Britain.

His frequent philhellene positions made Pouqueville's situation progressively more and more dangerous^[14]; he often had to remain in his house^[15] and, when he had an important communication for Ali, Hugues Pouqueville, his brother, had to bring it for him to the pasha.

Finally, Pouqueville's consistent diplomatic skills succeeded in achieving the desired chasm between the Sultan and Ali Pacha, thus provoking the start of the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire that would enable the regeneration of free Greek nationalism.
Soon, Ali Pacha would be disposed of by the Turkish emissaries from Constantinople and his severed head brought back to the Sultan^[16].

[edit] Patras and the Greek War of Independence

After Napoleon's abdication in 1815, Francois Pouqueville left Ioanina and was sent as French consul to Patras. There, he pursued his increasing contacts with the growing movement of the Greek rebellion which culminated with the declaration of the Greek War of Independence proclaimed on March 25, 1821 in the Agios Georgios chapel in Patras. Unlike the British consul Green^[17] who refused to help the Greek rebels, Francois Pouqueville gave refuge to the insurgents in the French consulate while the Turkish repression was raging. His reports described later these events and the extent of the destructions which he qualified as horrible.
(In his memoirs, Duke Pasquier, Chancellor of France, (1767–1862) wrote: "All the Greeks who were unable to escape from Patras were mercilessly slaughtered, regardless of sex or age. Only a few of the unfortunate victims could find refuge in the house of the consul of France, Mr Pouqueville. He saved them at the peril of his own life. This was the first example of the courageous self-sacrifice with which the French consuls fulfilled their duties."^[18])

In the end, the foreign legations who had been supportive of the Greeks had to leave the country, and Pouqueville returned to France.

Before enjoying a well deserved retirement from international diplomacy, his support to the Greek war of independence resulted in the French navy taking part in the Battle of Navarino on October 20, 1827, a naval victory which sealed the end of the 360 years of Turkish occupation of Greece, and in 1828, in the expulsion by the French troops of the Turkish garrison that had been holding on to the Patras citadel^[19].

It was on these shores of Navarino 30 years before that Francois Pouqueville had been put in chains to be emprisonned by the Turks and where he took his very first steps on Greek land.
As to the pirate Orouchs who had seized him and sold him as a slave, his own destiny was that he later went boasting about his capture in the presence of Ali Pasha when Pouqueville was still in residence in Ioanina. Although Pouqueville granted him his pardon, the pasha soon found an excuse to have the pirate impaled.

[edit] Return to Parisian life

[edit] Honors

Upon his return to France, he was awarded his seat at the Academie des Insciptions et Belles Lettres. He was elected member of the Institut d’Egypte, honorary member of the Academy of Medicine, and Knight of the Legion of Honor.

[edit] Writer of the regeneration of Greece

While writing about antique Greece in the numerous major works and articles he published from this moment, Francois Pouqueville mostly applied himself in denouncing the state of oppression crushing the Greeks under Turkish domination^[20]. He described the daily life, the usages and customs, and the traditions of the Greeks of the Peloponese surviving under their appalling economic and political conditions.
His books also gave a precise and detailed description of the geography, topography, and geology of the areas he traveled through and visited, and his observations were highly regarded by the geographer Jean-Denis Barbie du Bocage, author of a fine atlas attached to Barthelemy'sVoyage du jeune Anarcharsis en Grèce dans le milieu du quatrième siècle avant l’ère vulgaire, and who was a founder of the Societe de geographie in 1821. The maps of Greece that were established through their collaboration were so detailed and complete that they remained in use in Greece until the advent of aerial photography, and even to this day^[21]

For his services to their Country the Greeks honored him with the award of the Order of the Savior.

"To M. Pouqueville" were the dedications by prominent French poet Casimir Delavigne of two of his Messeiennes, odes to the combats for freedom.

The epitaph engraved in the marble of Francois Pouqueville's grave proclaims, in French and in Greek:
“With his writings he contributed powerfully to the return of their antique nationality to the oppressed Greeks”

[edit] Intellectual and artistic social life

He became part of the parisian gentry and was a regular at the salon of the Countess of Ségur who portrayed him under the affectionate humoristic character of Monsieur Tocambel in one of her best sellers Les petites filles modèles.
He befriended many of the time's artists and intellectuals such as Chateaubriand whom he inspired, as early as 1805, to see Greece and Egypt for himself^[22], and physicists Arago and Ampère, and also Alexandre Dumas who paid him homage in the book he wrote about Ali Pasha^[23].
The chapter he wrote about the massacre of the Souliots perpetrated by Ali Pacha in 1804 and published in his book History of Greece's regeneration (1824) inspired playwright Nepomucene Lemercier to write "The martyrs of Souli or the modern Epirus" a tragedy in five acts (Paris, 1825), and romantic painter Ary Scheffer to paint "The Souliot women" (1827).^[24].

Francois Pouqueville lived with the popular painter-portraitist Henriette Lorimier.
Masterful painter Ingres who was one of their many friends also made his portrait in 1834.
His grave at the Montparnasse cemetery is ornamented with his effigy by one of his closest friends, the sculptor David d'Angers.

[edit] Works

• Voyage en Morée, à Constantinople, en Albanie, et dans plusieurs autres parties de l'Empire Ottoman (Paris, 1805, 3 vol. in-8°), translated in English, German, Greek, Italian, Swedish, etc. available on lineat Gallica
• Travels in Epirus, Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly (London: Printed for Sir Richard Phillips and Co, 1820), an English abridged edition available on line
• Voyage en Grèce (Paris, 1820–1822, 5 vol. in-8° ; 20 édit., 1826–1827, 6 vol. in-8°), his capital work
• Histoire de la régénération de la Grèce (Paris, 1824, 4 vol. in-8°), translated in many languages
• Mémoire historique et diplomatique sur le commerce et les établissements français au Levant, depuis l’an 500 jusqu’à la fin du XVII siècle, (Paris, 1833, in-8°)
• La Grèce, dans l’Univers pittoresque (1835, in-8°) available on lineat Gallica
• Trois Mémoires sur l’Illyrie
• Mémoire sur les colonies valaques établies dans les montagnes de la Grèce, depuis Fienne jusque dans la Morée
• Notice sur la fin tragique d’Ali-Tébélen (1822, in-8°)

[edit] Notes and References

1. ^ "One can read in Pouqueville an exact description of Tripolitza, capital of the Peloponese." Chateaubriand From Paris to Jerusalem
2. ^ "Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (MWS) was concerned to describe accurately the geography of the area; she wrote to Charles Ollier, the literary adviser for Henry Colburn, Mary's publisher: I am in great want of a book which describes minutely the Environs of Constantinople...you would oblige me if you would send it without delay(MWS letters I, 431). She would doubtless have received Colburn's publication of Pouqueville's Travels in the Morea, Albania and other parts of the Ottoman Empire...etc(1813, translated by Plumptre). Much of Mary's account of the geography and military history of the city could have been derived from Pouqueville's descriptions, maps and illustrations." afterwords by Joyce Carol Oates of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's The Last Man (Wordsworth Classics, 1826).
3. ^ "By-the-bye, I rather suspect we shall be at right angles in our opinion of the Greeks; I have not quite made up my mind about them, but you I know are decisively inimical." Lord Byron's Correspondence "Letter to Hobhouse"(1805)
4. ^ "As the British laboured to prevent Ali from forming an alliance with Napoleon, French interests were quietly being promoted in Janina by their agent, Francois Pouqueville." Miranda Vickers The Albanians: a modern history I.B. Taurus Editions, Revised 2001
5. ^ "Much of the intercourse in Greece has always gone on by small coasters. Pouqueville mentions traces of a paved road between Corinth and Argos" (7) W.J. Conybeare and J.S. Howson Life and Epistles of Saint Paul"
6. ^ "Nearly a century before Delphi was excavated, a French envoy to the court of Ali Pasha of Ioannina visited the sleepy little village that stood on the site of the ancient oracular shrine. Pouqueville enthused over the wealth of inscriptions he saw: " marble slabs, pieces of walls, interiors of caves...covered with dedications and decrees that should be studied and carefully copied" (Voyages, 2nd ed., iv,113)Lamberton - Plutarch, 2001 Yale University Press
7. ^ "At length, M. Pouqueville, during a long residence in the dominions of the late Ali Pacha, actually discovered the remains of sixty-five cities, quite able to speak for themselves." Le Roy J. Halsey "The works of Philip Lindsey" Michigan Historical Reprint Series
8. ^ Page IV/347, "Manual of classical literature and art - Archaeology of Greek literature" from J.J. Eschenburg, by N.W. Fiske, Professor in Amherst College. (4th Ed. 1849)
9. ^ "The consuls of the principal european nations are established there, and imperial France's representative, Francois Pouqueville, is engaged in a power struggle for influence with his British counterpart." Michelin Guide, 2006
10. ^ "There he found Ali Pasha entertaining two Frenchmen, Francois Pouqueville and Julien Bessieres...Ali Pasha assured Jack that he did not welcome their presence, and he appeared to be annoyed that Pouqueville was busy distributing French propaganda, and currying favours amongst the Greeks by providing medical treatment without charge." Henry McKenzie Johnston Ottoman and Persian Odysseys: James Morier(1823)
11. ^ "(2)Acherusia: According to Pouqueville, the lake of Yanina, but Pouqueville is always out.(3) The celebrated Ali Pacha: Of this extraordinary man there is an incorrect account in Pouqueville's Travels. Lord Byron "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto II"
12. ^ "In fact (as their critics pointed out) both Byron and Hobhouse were to some extent dependent upon information gleaned by the French resident Francois Pouqueville, who had in 1805 published an influential travelogue entitled Voyage en Moree, a Constantinople, en Albanie...1798-1801" Drummond Bone The Cambridge Companion to Byron (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
13. ^ "In the same way, after murdering General Roze, who had treated him with uniform kindness, he submitted to the daily checks and menaces of Pouqueville, by whom he was replaced." Anonymous author The Edinburgh Review (1818)
14. ^ "A few months later, Ali Pasha treacherously assassinated the Major Andrutzi, a Greek officer serving France, that he had kidnapped from one of our ships, and whose son and nephew owed their lives to the skilled firmness of M. Pouqueville, then general consul in Ioannina." Victor Duruy "Histoire de la Grèce ancienne. Tome 1" (1826)
15. ^ "Moreover, the famous Pasha of Ioannina, Ali of Tebelen, where Napoleon has a consul, Pouqueville, is increasingly hostile to France: he is just opposite Corfu and can forbid the island to resupply on the main land. As usual, Napoleon rages and threatens. For example, this letter dated March 15, 1811 to the Foreign Minister, then Mr Maret: " My intent is to declare war to Ali Pasha if Constantinople cannot keep him in check. You will write to my consul to Ali Pacha for him to inform him that at the first sign of him preventing the resupply of Corfu, and forbid the transit of cattle and foodstuff destined to this place, I shall declare war to him." Easy said or written. One day, Pouqueville will find himself in jail..." Yves Benot "Colonial madness under Napoléon"
16. ^ "Ackmet-Nourri, with twenty of his men entered the kiosk of the terrible pasha of Yoannina to attack him. After having taken part of the murder of the Albanian satrap, he brought his head himself to Istanbul and presented it to the Sultan Mahmoud, who, as a reward for this act, gave him a coat of honor that he still wears to this day. Akmet-Nourri told us the tragic death of Ali Pasha. I won't report his story here: it is conform to that of M. Pouqueville." Baptitin Poujoulat Voyage dans l'Asie Mineure, en Mésopotamie, à Palmyre, en Syrie, en Palestine et en Egypte. Tome 2 (1836)
17. ^ "But Patras was no more; Yousouf, pasha of Serres, incited by the British consulate's drogman, Barthold, stormed this infortunate town, Germanos' undisciplined bands had fled and, except for 3000 people who owe their lives to the heroic self-sacrifice of the consul of France, M. Pouqueville, all the inhabitants of Patras perished by the swords and the fires. When told of the fate of Patras, the people of Beotia proclaimed their own insurrection." Raoul de Malherbe - L'Orient 1718-1845: Histoire, politique, religion, moeurs, etc. Tome 2
18. ^ Duke d'Audiffret-Pasquier - Mémoires de mon temps. Mémoires du chancellier Pasquier. Partie 2. Restoration.2. 1820-1824 (tome 5)
19. ^ General Makriyannis, Memoirs (Excerpts). Translated by Rick Μ. Newton: The Charioteer 28/1986
20. ^ "Mr Pouqueville, in his substantial work filled with facts, has established the same truths." Chateaubriand Note on Grece - Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem
21. ^ ."Installed in the Tzanetaki tower, a fine permanent exhibit retraces the history of the Magne with texts, drawings, photographs and sketches of the area established by a number of travellers who had discovered this region between the 16th and 20th centuries, notably the French writer Francois Pouqueville (1770-1838), author of Travel in Morea."Michelin Guide, 2006
22. ^ "M. Pouqueville showed me the way to a host of researches necessary to my work: I followed him without fear of doing wrong, him who was my first guide through Sparta's fields. Together we have visited Greece's antiquities when they were lit only by their past glory. Together we have pleaded our hosts' cause, with certain success." Chateaubriand, Etudes historiques
23. ^ "But it is made certain by the learned researches of M. de Pouqueville that he (Ali Pasha) sprang from a native stock, and not an Asiatic one, as he pretended." Alexandre Dumas Ali Pasha
24. ^ Hugh Honor Romanticism (Icon Editions)

[edit] Bibliography

• Jules Auguste Lair, La Captivité de François Pouqueville à Constantinople, 1800–1801 : (9 prairial, an VII-16 ventôse, an IX), Caen, H. Delesques, 1904.
• The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature By Tobias George Smollett (1791-1803). on line